I saw Johnny last night in Guelph, Ontario. Overall, it was a good show. I usually catch him in Toronto (where he is performing tonight), but when I found out he was coming to Guelph, I chose that location since it's closer. Given that Guelph is a smaller city, I expected the venue to be a small, run-down place. To my surprise, the venue was a converted movie theatre called Club Denim, with a huge, high stage, and it was packed with 2,000 people! We headed to the second-level balcony and had a great view, although we were a bit far back.
Paul James, a staple on the Toronto music scene for years, opened with a solo acoustic set, mainly consisting of Robert Johnson covers. He was really good, playing bass parts with his thumb, melody with his fingers, singing, and even playing some harmonica. However, after about four tunes, it started to get a bit repetitive.
Johnny came on to thunderous applause. His tone was excellent—ballsy and loud. He played the New York City set in order, substituting "Sick & Tired" for "Just A Little Bit." He didn’t perform "The Sky Is Crying." He played some very cool leads I had never heard before, really nice, alongside a lot of his signature material. His execution was smooth and clean, and at times, very fast. The band performed some nice rhythm changes and added new parts to certain tunes. Each song was quite long, which is typical, and would have been fine if Johnny Winter hadn’t been somewhat repetitive. He used certain riffs over and over again (four times in "Sen-Sa-Shun"). It was a bit like the NYC set, where just as the tune seemed to be ending, it would start back at the beginning. I think the performance would have been stronger if he had played double the number of tunes, but half the length.
His voice was similar to the NYC performance, perhaps a little weaker. He made a couple of small mistakes, but nothing major, and he recovered quickly. The tempo was a bit slow on some tunes, and he seemed slightly stiff when going on and off stage or when switching guitars. Most concerning to me was the constant side-to-side rocking he did, even when he wasn’t playing. I don’t know what causes him to do this, but it was a bit unsettling.
Despite all this, the crowd seemed to love everything he did, and from the conversations I overheard, people were impressed. A few grumbled that the set was short. He wasn’t quite at the level he was in '93, but he was still pretty good. I think I caught him on an "on" night.
Peter
